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Viewers of CBC television shows would keep the journalists but fire the lifestyle gurus, annoying gym teachers and dragons that appear on the airwaves, according to an online poll posted over the weekend on thestar.com.

And a slight majority of readers, or 54 per cent in a separate poll, believe there remains a role for the CBC in TV news.

Online readers were asked to weigh in as part of a series in the Star on CBC Television’s uncertain future.

The network needs to rethink its TV lineup, following the loss of Hockey Night in Canada revenue, a $115-million budget cut and job losses announced in April.

This fall’s lineup will be announced on Thursday.

Only 11 per cent of 415 respondents in our unscientific poll agreed that television news was going extinct, while 35 per cent said local TV news coverage should be left to the private networks that dominate in many markets across Canada. The remaining respondents agreed that “a public broadcaster still has a unique role to play in local TV coverage.”

In a separate poll, readers were asked which two CBC-produced shows currently on the air — from entrepreneurial competition Dragons’ Den to the educational The Nature of Things to the sitcom Mr. D — they would strike from the schedule. Of 1,524 respondents, 357 or 23 per cent said they would ditch Steven and Chris, a daytime lifestyle show. That show receives 134,000 viewers per week, far below Canadian leader The Marilyn Denis Show on CTV with 222,000.

Twenty per cent said they would drop Mr. D, which has a viewership of 377,000, followed by 12.7 per cent of votes to drop Dragons’ Den, which pulls in over a million views a week.

Readers would overwhelmingly choose to protect the informative shows.

Less than 1 per cent said they would get rid of investigative series the fifth estate. Two per cent would drop consumer series Marketplace and 3 per cent would drop Doc Zone or The Nature of Things.

Rick Mercer Report, Murdoch Mysteries, Republic of Doyle and This Hour Has 22 Minutes each received around 5 per cent of votes in the poll that asked, “If you had to eliminate two CBC shows from the schedule, which would you choose?”

The CBC spends $1.1 billion annually on its television programming and is bound in its efforts by the Broadcasting Act, which requires the network to “reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions.”

Reader Poll 1

Reader Poll 2

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